Creekside Church Sermon of April 22, 2001 "No Failure is Final" Acts 5:27-32	Rev. David Bibbee
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What do you want to be when you grow up? It is a frequently asked question of children. The first time I asked my 3 year-old daughter this question she replied, "I want to be a big tall Indian." I tell people that when I grow up I want to be a professional fishing guide and a writer. What did you want to become? Regardless of what we do, there is something we all want to be… successful!

As children we were taught to follow instructions, obey the rules, and be good. We were told to get good grades. Do our best and then we would get into a good college and then a good job and be successful. To make something of yourself isn't enough. In our work, our families, our play, and even our faith, we want to succeed, excel, and sometimes even pursue perfection.

There is something, however, that derails this desire. It is failure. On Easter we said that hope in Jesus' resurrection frees us from our fears. One of the greatest fears is failure. What some call the pursuit of success is really the avoidance of failure. But there is no escaping it.

Years ago a brash British burglar had pulled off a string of robberies. One night he broke into a suburban London home and was face to face with a tall, blonde woman. The paper reported what then took place: as soon as he saw the lady he changed his tack entirely, choosing this, of all unlikely moments, to woo her. After 30 minutes, he was getting on so well he tried to kiss her. To his horror, she not only refused, but knocked him flat with a strong right hook, a left hand jab, and a half-nelson.

In this state she frog marched him to the police station while smacking him on the head with a spare shoe. "She was no ordinary helpless female," the burglar commented later upon discovering that prior to gender-adjusting surgery, she had been employed as a bricklayer.

Some failures are embarrassing. Others are tragic. Vincent Van Gogh will be remembered as one of history's great artists. When a Van Gogh is on the auction block, it brings a staggering sum. Van Gogh was a successful artist, but not in his own time. While I was in France last May we went to the town of Auvers where Van Gogh spent most of his life. Van Gogh had spent several years studying for the ministry, but he failed. He then turned to painting. All of his paintings were done over a period of just 29 months, and all he had put on canvas was considered worthless. It is believed that Van Gogh suffered from epilepsy and schizophrenia. The people of Auvers were scared of Vincent and his strange behaviors and they ostracized him.

We visited his grave outside Auvers in an old cemetery surround by wheat fields. He's buried beside a wall at the back of the cemetery. The grave is covered with ivy. The headstone is small and simple, engraved with only his name. Standing at his grave you can look over the cemetery wall across a field to a thicket of woods. Failure upon failure took its toll, and in that thicket he took his life. Some failures are embarrassing. Some are tragic. Some alter the course of our lives. Whatever the result, facing failure is difficult. As someone said, "Success goes to your head, but failure goes straight to the heart."

Today we find Peter and the other apostles before the chief priest and temple council. They had already been thrown out of the temple grounds and forbidden to speak or teach in Jesus' name. They were jailed, but with the help of an angel they got out and were back in the temple preaching and teaching as before. Once more they were drug before the authorities. "What is it about 'stop' that you guys don't understand?" the chief priest asked. Peter responded, "We must obey God rather than human authority. We must tell what we have witnessed."

This sounds bold for a man who only days before was hidden behind a bolted door and drawn blinds. Days before he was sobbing for having done what Jesus said he would do. "Come what may," Peter said, "I'm with you all the way." Peter meant it. He believed it. Yet he of all people denied knowing Jesus. It was a failure of epic proportion. Yet here stood this formerly fear-filled failure of a man, boldly and bravely speaking for Jesus whom he days earlier denied. What happened?

Peter wasn't alone in failing Jesus. Judas betrayed him. The weight of what he had done was so overwhelming he believed he was beyond redemption. The only relief he saw was to hang himself. Too bad he didn't hang around a little longer…until Easter Sunday and the event which would forever change our understanding of success and failure. If Easter has anything to tell us, the very least it tells us is that failures are not final.

In a commencement announcement at the University of Colorado, Judge Sherman Finesilver offered this wisdom: "In this day of excitement…this rite of passage you are experiencing, I'm sure you will find it strange that I'm talking about failure. However, failure is absolutely inevitable. It is certain that you will fail at sometime in your life. As with the rising and setting of the sun, you will fail.

You're going to fail at a job or jobs, maybe in your relationship with your spouse, with parents, with children, or with a dear friend. You're going to fail maybe yourself, your sense of values, your morals, your ethical training, religious or otherwise. And the key is not to be destroyed nor devastated if you fail. R.H. Macy failed seven times before his store in New York City caught on. The English novelist John Creasey got 753 rejection slips before he published his first 564 books. Don't worry about failure. The suggestion to each of you is… worry about the chances you miss when you didn't even try."

Judas' failure led to suicide. Peter's failure was devastating, but it didn't destroy him, and another chapter of his life was unfolding.

The way to be somebody is to be successful, we are told. Who we are is tied to how we perform. Inwardly you may be a loser, but you don't have to look like one. Dress for success. When there's no hiding your complicity in a failure, blame someone else. "Adam, why did you eat the forbidden fruit?" God asked. "Eve made me do it!" But the resurrection has given us another way to deal with failure.

In Luke 22 just prior to Jesus' prediction of Peter's denial, he said to Peter, "Simon, listen. Satan has demanded to sift all of you like wheat, but I have prayed for you that your own faith may not fail; and you, once you have turned back, will strengthen your brothers." Jesus knew what Peter would do, there was still a plan and purpose for Peter's life. He was still the rock upon which the church would be built. Failures on our past do not mean abandonment on God's part. Peter failed, was forgiven, and made strong to help other disciples when they failed. In God's garden, failures are seed from which good, unexpected life grows.

Tom Watson was the founder and inspiration of the IBM Corporation. A sharp, young executive who had been hired by Watson, committed IBM to a risky venture. In the end, the project crashed and when the fallout had settled, IBM had lost 10 million dollars. Watson summoned the executive to his office. Whatever the outcome, the young man knew he was history. Before Watson could open his mouth, the junior exec. said, "Well, sir, I suppose you want my resignation." Watson replied, "Your resignation? You can't be serious. We've just spent 10 million dollars educating you!"

Not typical thinking, is it? But there is nothing typical about the resurrection and the possibilities it provides for dealing with failure.

There are innovative, successful companies that respond to employee failures not with punishment or pink slips. They throw parties! That's right. Parties. One company fires a cannon, everyone stops working and they all celebrate the perfect failure. They have learned what won't work. They don't have to put resources into it anymore. They can move on to something new.

Jesus told a parable about a wealthy young man who blew his inheritance in a distant country and wound up eating from a hog trough. He returned home an abject failure. What did his father do? Criticize his son for the stupid choices he had made? Did he disown him? No, he fired a cannon. He told the hired hands to take the rest of the day off, and threw a party for his boy.

God can teach us far more from our failures than from easily achieved successes. Last year a great theologian died, Charles Schultz, the creator of the "Peanuts" comic strip. Charlie Brown was well acquainted with failure. In one cartoon, Charlie's little sister Sally, sits at a table with two pieces of paper, one small and one large. As she diligently writes on the large piece she says to Charlie, "I'm making a list of all the things I have learned in life… well, actually I'm making two lists." "Why is one list longer than the other?" Charlie asks. Holding up the long list Sally says, "These are the things I've learned the hard way."

Easily earned successes are nice when they come, but teach us little compared with our mistakes. We learn the hard way because hard is what life is. We pay more attention because when we fail, the hurt goes straight to the heart. All of us know failure. What have you done with it? What has it done to you?

I'm sure that in the course of this sermon you have pulled to the side of the road and recalled your own failures; those in the distant past or those that are immediate. Some here know the grief of a failed marriage. Some here have watched as a dream for which they worked long and hard dissolved in an instant. Some here have failed in school, failed in your profession. Some here have failed to be a friend or have been failed by a friend. All of us have failed to hold up our end of our relationship with God.

The church is no exception. This church has meant so much to so many. How many Christians were shaped here? How many lives were changed? How many were given new meaning? This church has been blessed and will continue to be a blessing. There have been failures. We opted to be a well-run operation instead of a people of new life. We have been keepers of the aquarium and not fishers of people. We failed to seize opportunities and make tough decisions which would have better prepared us to face the challenges we face now.

Now we are preparing to move. We are excited. We are scared. We are skeptical. Like our Hebrew forbearers, in faith we are headed towards something, but we don't know what or where. There is much we don't know. I will assure you of something. We will fail. I have no doubt, given all we must do, that there will be failures along the way. But Winston Churchill once said something very important. He said, "There are two things which are never final, one is success, and the other is failure."

Peter failed Jesus. Jesus knew he would, but he prayed that Peter's faith wouldn't fail so he would come back, strengthen the others, boldly witness to the authorities, and build Christ's church. We fail Christ, but Christ does not fail us. All our failures, past and future are not final. We can be forgiven, we can learn from our failures, and be made stronger. Easter makes it possible.

Let's not forget that Jesus was a failure, too. Most people didn't listen to him. His disciples were not loyal to him. He died a humiliating death. By today's standards for success, his teaching is a recipe for failure. The last will be first? Count others better than yourself? Love your enemies? Pray for your persecutors. But in Christ, God made foolish the wisdom of the world. God raised Jesus from the dead. Easter changed everything. And this gives us faith that whatever life brings us, joy or sorrow, success or failure, nothing is final…except for Jesus and His love.

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